Man the moon is big and full tonight, like it’s right up there in the sky in our backyard. Sometimes I want to sleep outside, like just on the ground in a sleeping bag or something. Not in my backyard, mind you, no that’d be dumb. I mean camping, or getting outside. Too cold now though, gonna have to wait until it’s a little warmer.
Today at lunch, Sharaun and I got caught up talking about when Keaton grows up. We were watching a TiVo’d episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, which was showing clips of kids hurting themselves jumping their bikes off homemade ramps and landing on their asses while trying to jump curbs on skateboards. It got me thinking about when I was a kid, and how my brother and I used to pull my mom and dad outside into the front yard to watch us careen our own bikes down the sidewalk and off a ramshackle ramp we’d assembled from bits of plywood and bricks. It’s not like we were jumping over a pit of alligators or anything, just launching no more than a foot into the air for a split second, but we had our share of mishaps: ramps flattening mid-ascent, botched landings, and broken bikes – all which ended up in scrapes and bruises. All this before it was “vogue” to outfit your children in pads like linebackers, too.
As a parent now, I know there’ll be a day when Keaton wants me to watch her do a cherry drop off the high bars on the playground (that’s if schools even accept the liability of high bars anymore). The day will come when she wants me to watch her rollerskate down the driveway, or ride her bike while clapping her hands. And, as a source of validation, I’ll be expected to beam with approval and pride while stifling my fear of broken bones and skinned knees. I bet this is hard, although it must get easier as your child grows older. Sure makes me look a little differently at all the stupid stuff my parents used to watch us do when we were young though…
The bloggers-collective are slowly starting to scribe out their 2006 “best of” lists, and, as it happens, I spent a lot of time working on mine today and tonight. Today, running through the shortlist in my brain and re-listening to the albums on the iPod at work; tonight, writing up my thoughts, adding album artwork images to the post, tracking down and pasting in relevant links. It’s coming together nicely, and I think I may even be ready to post before leaving for Florida (or, if I’m facing a slow week of writer’s block). Look for it… if you’re cool… that is.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- the day james died - 2007
- cream of '05 - 2005
- the stupidness of their matrixy battle - 2003
We’ve camped in our backyard! It was fun not dumb. Jerk.